The UC-Berkeley Donald Vial Center on Employment in the Green Economy has submitted comments on the California Energy Commission's First Triennial Investment Plan for the Electric Program Investment Charge (EPIC) Program. The center appreciates the CEC's attention to workforce planning and acknowledges the importance of workforce education and training in driving commercial scale deployment of energy efficiency and clean energy investments. However, the center believes that the draft plan does not clearly identify the workforce barriers that need to be overcome to advance the clean energy economy and suggests that EPIC's workforce portfolio should be aimed at tackling strategic workforce problems that impede market growth for innovative technologies, using limited resources to target specific identified opportunities. The center also recommends that EPIC avoid duplicating existing efforts and build off California's existing workforce development infrastructure. The center appreciates the CEC's recognition of the importance of a well-trained workforce and believes that uncertainty regarding the quality of installation is an important market barrier that EPIC should address.
